Outside experts will study wreckage

Comair and lawyers representing the family of a victim of the crash of Comair Flight 5191 agreed yesterday to let outside experts examine the wreckage.

In a hearing yesterday in U.S. District Court in Covington, lawyers for the family of JoAnn Wright and Comair agreed to preserve all documents and evidence related to the crash that killed 49 people Aug. 27 at Blue Grass Airport. The two sides also agreed to allow the lawyers' experts to examine the plane's charred remains, which are in Atlanta.

Wright, 56, of Cincinnati, was on her way to Miami to board a cruise ship when the plane crashed.

Three families of crash victims have sued Comair since Aug. 27. Lawyers expect more lawsuits to be filed.

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Stan Chesley, a lawyer for Opal Blockson, the administrator of Wright's estate, said experts will be looking at whether there were any mechanical problems that could have contributed to the crash and how the fire on the plane spread.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators have said the plane, a 50-seat CRJ 100 Bombardier, took off from the wrong runway at Blue Grass Airport and crashed shortly after the plane took off.

Chesley said a date for the examination has not been set.

"We will share with any claimants and their attorneys any information that we obtain," Chesley said.

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Even now, five years later, Deborah Hersman can't stop herself from choking up when she talks about the day Comair Flight 5191 crashed at Blue Grass Airport.

"The accident occurred at 6 o'clock in the morning, and there were hundreds of people who stopped what they were doing and started to help," she said with frequent pauses in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. this week. "It was people from Home Depot who came out and brought us rope and work gloves, the people who lined the streets when ... when the families were being brought in, and they held signs up ... it was just a special community."